US Democracy ?

In the United States, our findings
indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense of actually
determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with
economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.
Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S.
political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor
policy change, they generally do not get it. Gilens
and Page

"The people who dominate the political economy at
present
are determined to use their considerable resources and influence to
prevent
the development and expansion of democratic infrastructure. Indeed,
at many turns, they consciously seek the actual deconstruction of that
infrastructure. And they will work harder to do so as the social
pressures created
by technological change, automation and joblessness are felt more
acutely." Robert McChesney and John Nichols book: People Get Ready

Managed democracy is a powerful solvent for any
vestiges of democracy left in the American political system, but its
powers are
weak in comparison with those of Superpower. Superpower is the sponsor,
defender and manager of American imperialism and militarism, aspects of
American government that have always been dominated by elites,
enveloped in executive-branch secrecy, and allegedly beyond the ken of
ordinary citizens to understand or oversee. Superpower is preoccupied
with weapons of mass destruction, clandestine manipulation of foreign
policy (sometimes domestic policy, too), military operations, and the
fantastic sums of money demanded from the public by the
military-industrial complex. (The U.S. military spends more than all
other militaries on Earth combined. The official U.S. defense budget
for fiscal year 2008 is $623 billion; the next closest national
military budget is China's at $65 billion, according to the Central
Intelligence Agency.) Democracy
Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted
Totalitarianism: Sheldon S. Wolin

For decades, mainstream political scientists and
other apologists for
the existing social order have tried to transform practically every
deficiency in our political system into a strength. They would have us
believe that the millions who are nonvoters are content with present
social conditions, that high-powered lobbyists are nothing to worry
about because they perform an information function vital to
representative government, and that the growing concentration of
executive power is a good thing because the president is democratically
responsive to broad national interests. The apologists have argued that
the exclusion of third parties is really for the best because too many
parties (that is, more than two) would fractionalize and destabilize
our political system, and besides, the major parties eventually
incorporate into their platforms the positions raised by minor parties
(which is news to a number of socialist parties whose views have
remained unincorporated for more than a century)." Michael
Parenti, Democracy for the Few

Question from David Barsamian:
"In Hegemony or Survival, you say that there is a “severe
democracy deficit” in the United States.

Answer from Noam Chomsky:
"I’ve discussed this in more detail in a later book, Failed
States, running extensively through public opinion studies and
actual policy. There is an enormous gap between public opinion and
policy. In 2005, for example, right after the federal budget was
announced, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, which
also studies domestic issues, did an extensive poll on what people
thought the budget ought to be. It turned out to be the inverse of
the actual budget: where federal funding was going up, an
overwhelming majority wanted it to go down. The public opposed
increases in military spending overall and supplemental spending
for Iraq and Afghanistan, which is going up even more now. Where
the budget was going down—social expenditures, health,
renewable energy, veterans’ benefits, the United
Nations—right across the board, the public wanted spending to
increase.

I asked a friend to see how many
newspapers in the country reported this. Apparently not one. This
is extremely important news. The population is radically opposed to
government policy. Isn’t that important news in a democracy?
What does that tell us about American democracy? (From Noam
Chomsky's book "What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a
Changing World)

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts
and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit
suicide.”
- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814.

"The
central American myth is that democracy is the
American way of life. Democracy, however, requires an educated
public. The sad reality we face is that the prospect of a public
educated to issues and alternatives is perceived as threatening to
the privileges of the minority that hold most of our wealth and
power, so virtually all of our institutions work to disarm this
threat. Operating with an effective confusion of "information" with
propaganda, our media, our schools, our corporations, and our
government support information technology and produce an increasing
flood of its product. Through what I call "the strategic use of
trivia," members of the public are under the illusion that the
"information" they receive is educating them on subjects that
matter. In fact they are by and large being fed what the
institutions that perpetuate the power of corporate America wish to
feed them." Myth
America: Democracy Vs. Capitalism By William H.
Boyer

It was always a mirage to imagine that you could have
a political democracy expressed in elections and not also have an
economic democracy. It's really simple. If you allow an economic
system in which 1 percent of the people have more than half the
wealth and the other 99 percent have to share the other half, then
the 1 percent are not going to be so stupid as to not realize that
one of the ways you secure yourself is to control the political
system. Occupy
the Economy, Challenging Capitalism: Richard Wolff pg
85

...when Americans with different income levels differ
in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly
reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no
relationship to the preferences of poor or middle-income Americans.
The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to
citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the
ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although
perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational
biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic
character of our society. Martin
Gilens

When the rich and poor disagreed about an issue,
policy
hewed closely to the preferences of the rich, and was "wholly
unrelated" to the preferences of the poor. The same was true, more
or less, when the opinions of the rich differed from those of
median-income Americans...."influence over actual policy outcomes
appears to be reserved almost exclusively for those at the top of
the income distribution. Martin Gilens "Inequality
and Democratic
Responsiveness"
from Don Peck's book Pinched. pg 147

Market theology and unelected leadership have been
displacing politics and elections. Either democracy must be
renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to
cement a new and less democratic regime--plutocracy by some other
name." Kevin Philips, Wealth and
Democracy 422 (2002)

Our current president has gone to war and has
symbolically marched back into "the city" wearing his
commander-in-chief persona and has declared that our nation is -
until further notice - in a permanent state of war, which will
likely last for the rest of our lives. He implies that this
permanent state of war justifies his unilateral reinterpretation of
the Constitutions in ways that increase his power as president at
the expense of Congress, the courts and every individual citizen.
Indeed, he has even partially militarized domestic law enforcement
by ordering uniformed military personnel to commence surveillance
within the country on American citizens, businesses, and civic
organizations that, in the view of the military, might pose some
threat to our nation. In times past, this was unthinkable, but it
has been met with very little protest. From Al Gore's Assault on
Reason. (2007)

"...Democracy in America today is in deep trouble.
Weak, shallow, dangerous, and corrupted, it is the best democracy
that money can buy. The ascendancy of market fundamentalism and
antiregulation, antigovernment ideology makes the current moment
particularly frightening, but even the passing of these extreme
ideas would leave deeper, longer-term deficiencies. It is
unimaginable that American politics as we know it will deliver the
transformative changes needed." The
Bridge at the End of the World: Gus Speth (2008)

"Democracy ? The people's representatives? How quaint
in a world in which our real rulers are unelected, shielded by
secrecy, and supported by a carefully nurtured, almost religious
attitude toward security and the U.S. military." The
United States of Fear: Tom Englehardt

"You can see this Republican approach today in voter
suppression schemes, aggressive gerrymandering of House districts,
expansive use of Senate filibusters, and nasty media outlets that
rely on disinformation and propaganda, rather than facts and
reason." Consortium
News. (This leaves out the self-imposed fiscal crises designed
to make the economy crash, dirty tricks, and packing of the
courts.)

The most effective way to
restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public
arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly
castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern
corporations." Noam
Chomsky

"...gerrymandering remains a massive stumbling block
to the realization
of American democracy...continues to protect minority rule in the
United States,
just as malapportionment once did." On
Democracy's Doorstep: J. Douglas
Smith

"Our democracy has been beaten up pretty badly.
The political influence enjoyed by big-bank CEOs and their high-priced
lobbyists is shameful. When people talk to me about how broken
Washington is, I really can't argue with them: it's a mess, and too
often its priorities are all wrong.
But I hope - I fervently hope -people won't give up." Elizabeth Warren A
Fighting Chance pg 163

Is the US a democracy?

America is today the
leader
of a worldwide anti-revolutionary movement in the defense of vested
interests...supporting the rich against the poor. Historian Arnold
Toynbee (quoted in A People's History of American Empire by Howard
Zinn et al)

Extreme income inequality accelerates a vicious
cycle where wealthy game the system to
favor themselves at the
expense of everyone else. Over time, this creates the boom and bust
cycles of the economy seen dramatically in 1929 and again in 2008. Republicans are largely responsible
for removing the New Deal economic stabilizers that damped down the business
cycle for decades.

USElections are thoroughly rigged, and
reform is not even an issue. The 2000 election, decided by a partisan Supreme Court was more properly
characterized as a coup, not an election. Clean elections are
a prerequisite for democracy
and we don't have them. Even if elections were honest and fair,
candidates
are not bound to do the people's agenda. Public policy is not much
influenced by elections. Oligarchs rule.

Look closely at almost any issue
and you will find that large monied interests (usually represented by Republicans) oppose democracy:
Examples from heathcare, pharmaceuticals,
transportation, weaponry, pensions, wages, software, education, and
many other areas reflect class warfare and the wreckage from the
Supreme Court's Citizen's United
decision.

Corporations
have become the controlling
interest of government. (This is also, by the way, the very
definition of Fascism.) Regulatory
agencies are dominated by industries that are supposed to be
regulated. The military has become a
security force for multinationals, especially oil
companies. The National Security
State has taken resources that might have gone to the well-being of
people. The police have been militarized and are increasingly violent. Like every empire in history, our fate is sealed.

Information streams are polluted. Media
are concentrated, exploitive
spammers, managed by party hacks, cowed into submission,
infiltrated by psy-ops, spoon-fed the official line. Government is secretive. There is
an assault on the press. Except for official voices, there is silence
in the media. A diversity of points of view is essential for a
democracy, but concentration of media corporations and government
intrusion prevents the possibility of democracy.

Republicans, though they do not
represent a majority of Americans, control the agenda
now. Through dark
money, gerrymandering, voter suppression, dirty tricks, election
rigging,
media spin, have made the US a failed state. They are consistently
heading
us in the wrong direction. They packed the Supreme
Court with party hacks who are corporate supremecists. They have
been largely responsible for creating a secret,
black government that
is unaccountable and is making important policy decisions
without oversight. They have secretly implemented universal surveillance that
robs us of civil liberties, privacy, and freedom. Even trade agreements are
drafted in secret.

Republicans cry for small government has been the excuse to
transfer formerly public functions to the private sector. 'Privatization'
is a tool for profiteers
that removes public functions from accountability. The commons is everywhere under attack from the right.

We vote for
candidates (all quite different, none exactly on the right
message), instead of voting for an agenda.

Our public servants
should be working for peace, using the best
diplomacy, protecting
the environment, providing everyone healthcare, and directing the economy toward
productive
purposes...not to weaponry that could be used only for Armageddon. An office holder not vigorously
pursuing the people's agenda should be unceremoniously
booted.

The WTO, an instrument of globalization,
can overrule in secret any local law. This is
governance by multinationals. The agenda is toward economic
restructuring, union busting for cheap
wages, and the imposition of the will of the global elite. There is
no regard for the condition of the environment,
or the well being of people.
Corporations rule... or more accurately...misrule.

Massive military spending required
by empire results directly in a shift of
the economy to armaments, and an
accelerating militarizing of all aspects of civil
life. It has also
spawned an arms race that is inherently very unsafe. Not only is
militarization incompatible with democracy, it makes civilized
social programs such as healthcare unaffordable.
As Nazi Germany
demonstrated: a country determined to use all of its resources for
empire can do so only by total disregard of its own people and, in
the end, it was reduced to rubble.

Dissidents beware: Our communications of all types are
now under complete surveillance.
Whistleblowers prosecuted. Suppression
of
dissent is an important part of new "security" measures. Peace
activists or
protesters of the SOA are
now considered terrorists. Academic opinion is subject to policing
through cutoff of government funds. Higher education is funded
heavily for military purposes. Courts have ruled that it is ok for
media to lie.

The Patriot
Act was but the visible part of an
assault on the Bill of
Rights. Telephone, internet search records, library borrowings,
and commercial sources have all been used in massive databases for
data mining without any oversight. Call that democracy ?

The events surrounding 9-11 were not
examined in a responsible way, yet
the Bush administration used them to justify
its own agenda. People
would never have agreed to these actions had they been fully
informed. The Press and the Congress failed to do due diligence in
the lead up to the War in Iraq, and time has
shown that the basis for war was a lie. No one was held accountable.

The future
of the US will be marked by poor
relations with the rest of the world, financial instability, overpopulation, energy crisis, environmentalcatastrophe,
inflation, and
endless war. There will be little employment
security, rising
costs, declining wages, deteriorating infrastructure, expensive
corporate healthcare, increasing surveillance, more intrusive
government, higher taxes, and a continuing race for the bottom. It
will meet the same as the fate of every other empire.

It is clear now that political
parties can over-ride Constitutional checks and balances. Their
commitment to environmental destruction, war profiteering and empire is likely to destroy not only
our civil liberties, republic, and
eventually the habitability of the
planet.

If the US had real democracy,
candidates would be bound to do what
people want. How well they do it would be the criteria with
which they are evaluated. Torture,
renditions, secret government,
broad surveillance, fiscal irresponsibility, neglect of health
issues, response to concerns of the public are just a few of the
categories that our current crop of candidates mostly
fail.

We should vote for an agenda,
decided in a public, transparent process in which sensible, publicly
sanctioned goals are established., Candidates would be bound by them.

Agreements that we have signed in the past, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the
Geneva Conventions, the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Agreement, the
Prevention of Weapons in Space, the Laws
of War as agreed at Nuremberg, and others should be respected as
law.. It seems the U.S. does not have virtue required to join the
International Criminal Court.

Neither of our political parties has a plan for the future.
Technology can and will reduce
number of jobs wholesale. There will be massive unemployment.

peace.
(Unfortunately not on the table right now. Neither of our political
parties favors peace.) War is profitable.
Republicans promise plenty of it. They love their guns.
Police are being militarized. The wilding of the U.S. will accelerate.
(See Charles Derber's book.)

Human Rights (the law should not stop at the water's edge. Torture, renditions and other crimes of the Bush administration should be illegal and
accountable.)

democracy. The infrastructure of democracy: economy, media, elections, education,
politics is not suffient to support it. (Government that
actually benefits the people ? Sorry, that's not on the table
either.)

fair elections.
(This is a precondition for
democracy. This is not really under consideration right
now.)

economic
reform (There can be no democracy if there is extreme income
inequality.) The economy is not fair, stable, or sustainable. Privetly
controlled government is facism. The hidden
part of government will continue mass surveillance. Privacy is dead.

justice,
which is to include
the
right of habeas corpus, due process, and a duty to observe
international agreements that have been signed in the
past. Republicans oppose closing the Gulag at Guantanmo, a stain on
U.S. values and a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists. The U.S. is
number 1 in incarceration.

media,
an
essential element for any democracy, is firmly controlled by the plutocracy
and there is no
credible
effort to change that. It is a primary method to depoliticize the
public, an enemy of public information, a distraction, and a way to
keep the public ignorant.

It is all about people
having the ability to determine our direction. It is clear that our steering mechanisms
are extremely weak.